


Loose bandaged tourniquets

by dasakuryo



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Character Study, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Original Character(s), Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-29
Updated: 2017-04-29
Packaged: 2018-10-25 09:09:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10761135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dasakuryo/pseuds/dasakuryo
Summary: He almost blows up their cover in the crowded hallway of the Star Destroyer. He can barely push down the sneer of disgust that creeps into his face, raw fury clawing at his muscles from the depths of his memory. Later, when Jyn confronts him, he will insisteverything's fine. Jyn knows he was anything but fine on that bridge. She knows perfectly well there's something eating Cassian up. He was there for her, she wants to be there for him too. //[In which there are things from one's past that will surface without warning, no matter how deep you try to bury them. Cassian Jeron Andor may be a resourceful talented spy, but there are things he can't keep from Jyn Erso.{fill for rebelcaptainprompts' #11 prompt confined}





	Loose bandaged tourniquets

_Llevo la cara de empate,_  
tu frente de ataque  
y alguna señal.  
  
Quiero tener un rescate  
para que me desaten  
la soga final.  
  
Sueño con volver a respirar.

_-Víctimas, Tan Biónica._

 

 

He almost blew up their cover in the crowded hallway of the Star Destroyer. He could barely push down the sneer of disgust that crept into his face, raw fury clawing at his muscles from the depths of his memory, like a clawcat seethed with blinding smearing rage.

Tension wrapped on his neck, his shoulders, his back. Anger made his fingers curl —a deep breath the only thing that kept him from balling his hands into fists.

Suddenly the collar was choking him; the imperial uniform draped around him reduced to a claustrophobic and asphyxiating prison. Suddenly he felt repulsed, dirty, nauseous that _that uniform_ of all things was in contact with his body, _touching_ his skin, its cloth wrapping warmth around him like—

At the mere distant sight of him, there was nothing Cassian wanted more than to _tear it off_.

Jyn's calmed pace turned into a few stomped, heavier steps. Cassian forced himself to clasp his hands behind his back as they approached, drew in another deep breath and tried to unknot the muscles of his jaw.

Jyn bumped on his side.

Cassian bit the rim of his tongue in the back of his mouth, kept himself from reaching out and return the fleeting caress of that casual incidental brush of hands. There was concern wrinkling the corner of her eyelids and breaking through the perfectly crafted undaunted expression of the imperial officer she was impersonating.  He gave a brief, almost imperceptible nod, in a vain effort to keep her from worrying. Jyn barely squinted her eyes at him.

 He gave another nod, sharper this time, gaze darting to her face and eyes interlocking for a brief mili-second. They still had a mission to complete, data to obtain, he needed her focused and her mind right then and right there.

Judging by the way his heartbeat was pounding into his ears, the feeling of each and every single one of the veins in his neck pulsing, he might as well take a flimsi from his own book. He sucked in a slow, steady breath and ignoring the pain of his sore jaw. He took a step, and another, and another, his boots clicking on the durasteel back to a rhythmic measured tempo.

When he greeted him, when the words rolled out of his mouth in a controlled even tone, when his tongue tamed his accent into the facade around each word with a perfect and refined Coruscanti, every fiber inside him smoldered with the embers of his dormant wrath.

_Wrath that had been burning quietly over eighteen years._

* * *

Jyn heard the slight but frantic rustle of cloth behind her the minute they entered hyperspace. She held her breath, the thump and a slam soon followed. Cassian facing the wall; the uniform was down on the floor, a heap of messy wrinkled grey cloth by his foot.  His hand was pressed to the wall, shoulders squared.

Jyn took a tentative step towards him. He didn't flinch. She took another, and then another, and the closer she got she realized that his back was heaving up and down. It wasn't long before she could hear the swish of his ragged, labored breathing.

"Cassian?"

There was a pant. His fingers twitched, pressing on the durasteel. He brought the back of his hand to his face, and rubbed his mouth. Still, Jyn did hear the sniffle. He turned, even under the weak halo light of the cargo hold, the glistening of his eyes was evident.

"Everything okay?" she knew something was clearly _not_ okay.

"Everything's fine," he answered in a flat, monotone voice, wiping at his nose.

She lifted her hand up to meet his arm and gave a gentle squeeze. When he stopped short, muscles twitched underneath her touch, Jyn let her hand rest in the crook of his elbow. Almost feathery.

"It doesn't—" his gaze was fixed on a distant spot on the floor. She hesitated, took a deep breath, "you don't seem fine, Cassian," her voice dropped and softened when her tongue wrapped around his name. Her thumb brushed his arm over the cotton shirt.  

He didn't move. She didn't move either. A quivery smile flickered across his face for a fleeting moment, his already ragged breathing seemed to quicken. His gaze, averted to the floor. Jyn didn't know what to say next, she knew perfectly well she was treading on egg-shells. Something about that mission had shaken him; his reaction when they were making their way to the bridge hadn't gone unnoticed.

Something was _wrong_. Jyn felt him tremble under her hand, but then he clamped his lips, blowing out a deep long exhale through his nose. He cleared his throat with a cough that was anything but dry, ran a hand through his hair before blurting out in a hushed tone, "I need to contact Draven."

Jyn's fingers released his arm. Out of reflex, she unconsciously clutched them when he moved, only managing to run them along his arm and side as he walked past, off to the cockpit.

Cassian didn't seem to take notice, as if driven by inertia, as if numb.

Jyn raked her fingers through her hair, stopping at the bun. The air in her lungs came out in a ragged breath. Her gaze followed him up the stairs, it was obvious from the way each clink on the rails blotted each other out that he was evading her, whatever was troubling him, on purpose.

Jyn's hands clasped the base of her neck. She pressed her fingers, twisting her neck from side to side. She winced and sucked in a breath when the bones gave in, a soft crack that she felt pulsing on her fingers. Her sigh was ragged.

She knew something was off with Cassian. She knew something was troubling him, deeply. Cassian was able to mask his emotions, push them down and aside even, for the sake of a mission. Always calm, always collected, always playing the part of the arrogant imperial officer perfectly—

Then _why_?

Why had he broken character when they were surrounded by imperials on all sides? Why had she seen that _murderous_ light flickering through his eyes? Why, instead of arrogance, it had been feral, raw _rage_ what she had felt his whole body was giving off?

She rubbed her neck.

Jyn clamped her lips, the heavy sigh ended up breathed out through her nose. She shook her head, trying to put together the memories. But no matter how many times she went over it, all came down to that hallway.

She pinched the bridge of her nose. In their data, planets and systems the Empire was after. The purpose, invasion and mining. New potential military targets for the Alliance. The Empire also seeked to spot and eliminate insurgencies and resistance movements.

They had sneaked into the bridge towards the mainframe data-base, the tension over him relieving with the ongoing infiltration.

Still, nervous fingers had plucked his collar away.

He had kept tugging the cloth _away_.

Her breath came out in a shuddering puff. Cassian was clearly hurting, there was _clearly_ something eating at him. No matter how many chances she'd given him to open up, he hadn't taken any. Instead, he'd chosen to drift further away from her –and, Jyn guessed, drowning deeper into that sorrow.

She found herself clutching the kyber crystal.

 

_"I can conduct a memory wipe-out, if necessary and your optimal performance so demand it."_

_"That... Won't be necessary, Kay."_

The way Cassian froze when he turned around and saw her standing by the cockpit entrance, made all her inner alarms go off.

The air in her lungs suddenly solidified. She held his gaze, not out of choice, she'd much rather have shrugged it off and pretend she hadn't heard a word. But her concern betrayed her. Her muscles did not respond. Her fingers twitched on the cold durasteel doorframe of the cockpit.

It was Cassian who looked away, eyes clouded, flickered from her face to the floor. K-2SO, for once, did not cut in and the faint clicks and clacks and beeps filled the silence that had settled over the two of them.

The air sounded unusually raspy when he drew in a breath. His hand, quick to scratch the back of his neck when he shifted his weight. A clank, and another, and the question Jyn had ready died in her tongue.

"I need to go over some files," he was by Jyn side on his way out —and away— again, "for the report."

Whatever he said in the sough that followed in a hushed breath, Jyn couldn't be sure. Once again, he'd slipped away before she had had to get closer. She sucked in a breath, gaze following him as he grew smaller and smaller, until he disappeared at the turn of the end of the hall.

Her tongue cleaved over the roof of her mouth. Of course she could have chosen bluntness, but his clouded eyes, the weight that hunched down his shoulders, his glistening eyes under the light of the halo-lamps... the way he'd got rid of the jacket—

It wouldn't have been sensible of her to pour acid on the wound, not when what she wanted was Cassian to trust her with whatever was bothering him. Even though bothering would have been an understatement, Jyn knew, and more so she suspected now by the droid's interjection, that there was more to his behaviour. There was something running deeper, something that wasn't easy to deal with— and Jyn wasn't willing to let him bear that burden alone.

"I knew this mission was a bad idea, but nobody ever listens," K-2SO rumbled in a raspy metallic voice, too similar to a frustrated sigh for Jyn's liking.

Jyn bit the rim of her tongue before turning around on her spot and asking in the most puzzled voice she could manage to utter, "what do you mean?"

The droid's head swiveled around, dimly-lit foto-receptors focused on her –many a time had Jyn felt that as reprehensible squinting.

"Cassian always puts the mission first. I advised him the chance of this mission having a negative impact on his emotional distress ranged from 85 per cent to 90 percent when we boarded General Syndulla's shuttle on Hoth," there was a brief pause, the clicking sound of the droid keying buttons, "he didn't want to hear my diagnostic when he was about to leave, even when I insisted," another pause, more keying, "he _always_ refuses my memory wipe-outs."

Jyn didn't know whether Kay realized the mind of a sentient being wasn't like that of a droid. However, it seemed that Kay, whether wanting to or not, had pushed her in the right direction. She tapped the floor with the heel of her boot, a lone clank.

"Why would he want one?"

When the droid answered, Jyn suddenly remembered who she was talking to, "I am not authorized to disclose the Captain personal information," he swiveled around and turned his back to her.

The rhythmical clinks and clanks of the droid working about the shuttle system drone out the silence. The droid's loyalty to his re-programmer, rather than a sub-routine, was behind the reluctance to go into details.

The slow clutter of feet trudging on metal. Then, little did it matter knowing that Cassian's past was what was wreaking havoc on him. The root of his unrest being in his past wasn't settling the mud either, a lifetime worth of war left the answer vague and unclear. 

However, she found herself turning to K-2SO again, wrinkles of perplexity between her eyebrows, when the droid so casually interjected "maybe you should ask him _yourself_ , Jyn Erso," attention to the controls before him.

 

  


Jyn bit her lower lip hard enough to draw blood. She hissed out a grunt, frowned at the final paragraphs of her report shining on her data-pad. With a sigh, she undid and wrapped her hair into a bun for the third time in the past thirty minutes.

Of course, she could just ask him, she reasoned, following the straight lines the grey durasteel roof above her head, just like her logic. Blowing out a sigh, gaze on the roof, her hand groped for the data-pad, somewhere on the covers.

She hissed a curse when the data-pad slid away from her grip and down. A clank. By some miracle, the device was intact, no chipped screen at all, files secure. Creases wrinkled her forehead when she noticed where she'd stopped recounting the events–

Right at the corridor.

Of course, Jyn could totally keep the details off the files. She could totally avoid mentioning at all what she'd picked up on Cassian's behavior altogether, even though reports called for comments on performance, inherently driving her to tackle his demeanor.

The data-pad met the covers with a flop. Her heels bit on the durasteel, her fingers raked through her hair, stopped at the bun. A puffed out sigh, fidgety fingers tucking rebellious locks behind her ear.

She couldn't just pretend she hadn't noticed. She couldn't just pretend there wasn't anything going on with Cassian. She couldn't turn a blind eye to the pain she'd seen corroding the strong stoicism of his inscrutable expression, always proper, always composed _during_ —and after— missions.

She couldn't _ignore_ it.

Not when it had been Cassian the one who'd stood by her when realization completely dawned on her, when all ramifications of what those loses entailed had hit her in full swing.

She knew, perfectly well, that her _father_ was _dead_ , that _Saw_ was _dead_. And still, it was as if her mind hadn't completely wrapped around those facts 'til months after—

Like when Rogue One had broken into an Imperial facility and retrieved archives and files on test studies on synthetic kyber crystals, leaving distorted and falsified data in their place, successfully keeping the Empire from using science and knowledge to further subjugate the galaxy. And she realized she would never truly know if her father would be proud of that; he would never know that she'd kept the Empire from tarnishing what –intrinsically– had brought him and her mother together, what had given him that breath of happiness and small measure of solace his family had been.

Like when, along with the Pathfinders, the Rebellion deposed the Imperial governor on an Out-Rim planet. She would never get to tell Saw about it, he'd never knew that it had been Jyn who had driven the Imperial forces out of their posts and into the forest, that it had been her who had created the diversion with every single militia tactic Saw'd taught her. He would never get to know that it had been her plan that had left the officials barely unprotected to stand their ground against Dameron and his squad on the offensive.

And those were two instances of _many_ that had trampled over her without warning.

Utterly off guard, still she'd somehow managed to keep her chin up. Her distress masked for everyone around her —everyone _but_ Cassian.

After all, Cassian could read her like nobody had ever been able to. It scared her, left her feeling too exposed, too _vulnerable_. Jyn hadn't had the luxury of showing vulnerability for a long time, not since Lah'mu. When he'd asked her, treading carefully as she'd moments ago in the cargo hold, Jyn'd shrugged it off.

She'd shrugged it off once, twice… until he was around when grief struck another blow.  She'd been able to keep herself together. But finding herself drown into the warmth of Cassian's chest had knocked down every defense she'd put up. The lapels of the leather jacket chafing her skin when the whisper had reached her ears—

_"Cry if you need to," her fingers digging into his arm over the cold leather the moment Cassian tightened the embrace. His hand, a warm nestle for the curve of her nape, "you're no less strong for crying."_

_Jyn was thankful he'd waited until there was nobody around. She was thankful he'd waited until Bodhi and K-2SO had called it a night with the repairs. She buried her face in Cassian's shirt_ _–_

_And let the tears fall._

She didn't need to come off as impervious to pain all the time. She could let her guard down; there was no shame on it.

It seemed like Cassian needed the same reminder.

 

* * *

There was a knock on the door. Cassian pressed the button and the pale blue image trembled, quivered and blurred sideways, before fading.

The clanking tapping on the door made him rose to his feet. He managed to keep his expression neutral when his eyes met Jyn standing on the doorway, hugging her data-pad to her chest.

"I need help with the," her gaze lowered and no sound came out of her mouth. She cleared her throat, "with the report— there are a few things… I am not sure if I wrote them down like," a brief sighed pause, "right."

Her brow creased, she stared at his held out hand.

"May I see it?" he asked in a low voice.

Jyn seemed to startle, out of whichever trance she was in, and nodded. He tapped her thumb on the greyish cat-plast below the screen. He leant on the doorframe, back on the duracrete. He was halfway through skimming the first page when he heard a faint clang. Jyn was still standing on the exact same spot, hand clasping her forearm and teeth biting down at her lower lip.

Apparently he wasn't as good with cues as he'd thought. He swung around, pivoting on his heel and gestured Jyn to follow him into the room. He heard the rustle of her steps behind him, the swoosh of the door closing shut. He waved his hand, gaze still on the screen, to the bunk —although given the way she was shifting her weight from side to side, Cassian doubted she would actually remain settled down for long.

The report seemed okay. It was something he'd helped her with for some time. After all, making reports wasn't something Saw Guerrera cared much about, it was only natural that Jyn had found herself at a lost —and frankly, as Cassian recalled, rather _baffled_ — at having to present one forth after Scarif.

 _"We've got results, didn't we?" she asked him, rolling her eyes at his frown when he suggested she ought to be working on it, the beeps and buzzing haste of the med-bay making up for the sudden silence, "we did what they weren't brave enough to do and now I have to put it on.. a_ file _," her snort sent her bangs flying upwards and the laugh that rattled in his chest send a stab of pain through his side._

 _"I_ _…_ _know," he managed to breathe out, squeezing his eyes shut to avoid seeing her frown of concern, "but we need the records_ _…_ _they help to come up with strategies," he sucked in a breath, "and figure out why a mission was successful, if there's things that the Alliance needs to be cautious about_ _—_ _stuff like that."_

_Suddenly, stiff rather raspy cotton was brushing on his chin again and his chest was warm, the pungent smell of antiseptic hanging in the air, too close. The covers that had slithered down were suddenly back were they should be._

_"Whatever," Jyn mumbled; making sure that the vial was still in place on his arm._

Everything seemed covered. Maybe she'd have to do some adjustments and cut down on words or rephrase a few things here and there but overall—

His finger stopped short on the screen.

He fixed his gaze on her. Her back straightened as she held his gaze, a sudden harshness set to the corners of her mouth that wasn't there when he'd answered the door. He looked at her with a raised eyebrow, holding out the data-pad.

Jyn didn't look back at the screen before saying, "I didn't know what to make of it," she shifted, but never broke eye contact, "so I figured I should ask… just in case, I– you know," she trailed off and made a flourish with her hand.

Cassian noticed the way she tensed when he sat down right next to her. Of course, _of course_ she had noticed. Sometimes he wondered whether she realized how well she could read him, even though Jyn claimed she couldn't, even though she complained he was but a walking unsolved mystery to her still.

His breathing was warm on his palm. He set the data-pad down on the small space between the two of them, and rose to his feet, reaching out with his hand to the small desk right opposite him.

 

Jyn held her breath when Cassian got up. Fingers curling and un-curling, she watched him take slow steady steps along the room, hand covering his mouth, eyes down, a haggard face. The silence felt deafening, she couldn't come up with a coherent thought and the words sounded off no matter how she arranged them. All of a sudden there was a whispered whirring; pale blue light and a quivering image materialized above the table.

A laugh rang out and filled the silence. Despite the buzz wrapping around the audio, the static couldn't hide the genuine bliss of that laughter, rattle tingling. The image, still unfocused, kept trembling sideways, the laughter kept ringing as a soft voice joined in.

Jyn blinked, heart beating in her ears when the edges got more defined. The file audio and video stabilized. Now she stared at the owner of that laugh. A boy, squirming and tittering behind a smeared cloth rubbing on his cheek. He turned and turned and screwed up his face, trying to pull the cloth away. His fingers wrapped around the wrist, pulling a face. The hand wrapped around the cloth and sweeping the child face belonged to a woman, a waterfall of dark curls falling down her back, white flakes from above nestling on its curves.

When she spoke, voice soft and sweet, words alien to Jyn's ears, the boy peered through a half-lidded eye while rubbing at the other with a knuckle. A dimple next to his mouth when his lips curled into an awkward smile, eyes squeezing shut and creases clinging to the roundness of his face when the woman leant forward and pressed a kiss to his cheek.

He giggled again when the woman hands were suddenly on his sides. His acute tingling laugh mingled with the soft chortle of the woman, until they blossomed into a long and loud roar of laughter. The woman poked the child on the nose, biting down her lips. In the blink of an eye the kid wrapped his arms around the woman and snuggled close. A warm smile broke through the woman's face; she pressed a kiss to the top of the kid's head, dusted with flakes too. Her smile quivered, lower lip trembling, arm hugging the child closer to her chest as her gaze got lost on the horizon spreading before her.

A shadow of smile curled the corners of the boy's lips, he turned and buried his face on the woman shoulder. A small smile, a mere twitch of lips, growing curve that he bit down and swallowed.

The recording buzzed and quivered before starting all over again.

Jyn couldn't tear her eyes from the holo. Her throat clogged. Her fingers curled upon the laughter and giggle of the boy. The woman's words, she couldn't make out this time either. When the kid frowned and smiled at the woman again, dust suddenly clung to her nostrils. When the smile broke through the boy's face again, buzzing noise of engines and steps and chatter filled her ears. When the boy's eyes softened, she stared at warm brown eyes meeting her gaze.

Jyn looked up. Brown eyes held her gaze.

The same brown eyes of Jedha, of the hangar, of the beach.

The same brown eyes from the holo. 

She swallowed, but the knot smothering her throat didn't slacken at all.

The laugh rang off again.

"I was six," his voice was hoarse, eyes were fixed on the recording, "I followed her one morning and ended up amidst the Festian resistance—" his voice lowered and wrapped around a sigh. A sniff that he tried to mask with a dry cough, "somehow I got oil on my face," Cassian fell silent again, wrinkles on his forehead and a curving creases between his eyebrows, as if he was trying to remember how that'd came to happen, "my mother didn't want the oil to end on the jacket too."

"Did she manage to get it off?"

He breathed out the chuckle.

"Yeah, sort of… at least."

The bunk creaked under Cassian's weight. Jyn stared at her hands. She'd hazzars a guess then, it had to do with his mother. A flash of green and red, the thud of limp weight meeting the ground flickered through her mind. She understood why Cassian had insisted everything was _fine_ —

Jyn also avoided thinking about her mother's death, if she could help it. She had enough as it was with the nightmares that haunted her, sleeping seldom meant rest. Her mother dying was one of the things she'd re-lived through over and over again for years.

From all things of her past she'd like to have in common with Cassian, having one's mother dead wasn't one of them.

By her side, Cassian shifted. Out of the corner of her eye, Jyn noticed the way he rubbed his eye. She said nothing; merely let her eyes fall again on that little moment of Cassian and his mother playing over and over again above the table.

"What was her name?" Jyn found herself asking in a thin voice. Her palms itched and she twitched her fingers, practically digging them into the covers to keep herself from reaching out his hand.

"Losna," Cassian answered in a low sigh.

Silence settled over the room, save for the giggles and the laughter. Jyn brought her legs to her chest, chin on her knees when a little smile curled her lips. It was a silly thought to have, but she couldn't help take in _Cassian had his mother's smile_. She bit down her lips, the memory of Lyra smiling down at her as Jyn coloured draft profiles on the dining room's table, her legs hanging and swinging, still too short to touch the ground. The brush of her mother's fingers raking through her hair as she braided her pigtails.

She sniffed at the memory of her mother smiling. She blinked, eyes prickling with unshed tears. The way Cassian was so reluctant to speak about the subject made it obvious the loss of his mother entailed great pain. Maybe she was reading too much into it, maybe she was projecting, wanting to feel _closer_ to Cassian—

She was starting to think the Empire'd had something to do with her death, _too_.

She didn't ask. It was up to Cassian to tell her, if he wanted to, just like K-2SO had insinuated. After all, neither of them were known to overshare their feelings, much less their past—

She glimpsed at Cassian. The air heavy in her lungs; her hand, the one that was a palm away from his, itched again. She curled her fingers again and tapped the mattress. She ended up hugging her legs closer to her chest instead. She pressed her lips together, tightening the hold below her knees. Jyn hoped Cassian knew she was there for him, if he needed her, just like he'd been there for her.

"He took her," Cassian said, his voice strained. Jyn's grip loosened, the tip of her boot bit the durasteel. Her hand skidded over the covers, "the admiral on the hallway, Cynber Yfel."

Jyn had a vague memory of the man. She remembered the steely, cold, grey eyes and the smirk that curled his lips. The sinisterness of his face reinforced by the angularity of his features and the high prominent cheekbones cutting sharply through his face, piercing like his smile.

"He wasn't an admiral when it happened, obviously," Cassian spoke again, "just an imperial stationed on Fest wanting to climb up the ladder," another pause, his voice a growl when he spoke next, "handing over a prisoner... someone they could  take vital information from to crush the Festian resistance surely helped his career," words like acid, utter hatred in his voice.

Jyn's hand was practically brushing his.

"I knew something was wrong when I saw her looking out the window that morning," a pause, shaky fingers rubbing his cheek, "I should have never go down to the market..." his anger lowered to a whisper, a pained, strained whisper.

His hand was cold. He didn't flinch at the touch, his eyes glued to the recording were his mother was still alive and breathing, rubbing a stained cloth on his cheek to keep the oil off his jacket.

"It wasn't your fault," her voice had came out in a whisper too, though unlike his it was warm, soft.

Cassian shook his head. She tightened her grip on his hand.

"Nobody did anything," his voice trembled around a grunt, around a growl, Jyn felt his hand twitch and curl beneath hers, "they looked away when they were dragging her into the transport, pretended nothing was happening at all."

She slid her fingers underneath his and clasped, gripped, his hand tightly into hers. His head jerked downwards for a fleeting moment when he sniffed, but he looked away when he pressed the back of his hand to his eye.

"I remember running and trying to catch it, I had a thermal detonator I have snatched from the cell," he let out a dry laugh, "I remember thinking I needed to get to her, that I couldn't leave her behind..."

Jyn wanted to say something, but words would have sound hollow and empty. There was really nothing she could say to ease that kind of pain, Jyn knew it first hand. So she squeezed his hand, harder, even allowed herself to brush her thumb along the side of his palm, along his wrist.

"Weeks after... It became obvious they couldn't break her. I guess the Festian resistance wasn't so much of a threat for Darth Vader to interrogate her," another dry laugh.

Her heart throbbed in her chest. She thought about Cassian, no much older than she was when she lost her mother and her family, being fully aware of the things the Empire did to their prisoners—

To those they abducted, to those they vanished.

"I found her file, when I was working undercover in an imperial facility on the Atrivis sector," he continued, "Kay found it before I could... he encrypted it so many times that... eventually I gave up trying to open it."

Cassian laughed again. Not the twenty six year old Cassian Jeron Andor who'd been fighting since he was six years old. The Cassian who laughed was six, had oil on his face and his mother was lovingly trying to keep him in check, he was six and didn't know of the loss that awaited him, he was six and hugged his mother under the snow falling from the greyish Festian sky. He was six and had at least an ounce of innocence and peace and love left to hold on to.

"Cassian..." Jyn was surprised she could utter a sound. She searched for his gaze, but he leant forward and turned off the device in the exact same moment his six year old self threw his arms around his mother's neck.

"I was wearing the same uniform he was wearing."

"You weren't him, he wasn't you."

The muscles of his jaw knotted. At least, Jyn had known the relief of seeing the murderer of her mother wounded, she'd been sure that death awaited him. Cassian had never had that sastisfaction, and when the murderer of his mother had been within reach, within shot range, he'd had to pretend being one of the very same people who had snatched away from her and into the horrors of torture, he'd to pretend to be one of those who had thrown her into the pits of death.

"It was as if I-"

"No," she cut in, voice so firm it bordered on a snarl, "you will never be them, you will never be like them."

Finally, he looked at her. All warm brown eyes brimming with tears. The tiny smile quivered on his lips for a fleeting moment before crumbling down.

They stayed like that, looking at each other for a while. Whether it had been minutes or seconds, Jyn couldn't be sure, she was only conscious of Cassian's gaze on her, of her thumb brushing along his hand, of the cold vanishing beneath her finger and the warmth.

"What was she telling you?" Jyn asked, hoping the question would divert his thoughts effectively away from that line of thought.

His clouded expression now did crease into a smile. Even broader one than the ones Jyn was used to see on him, he even bit down his lips a little.

"Las rebeliones se basan en la esperanza," the words were still devoid of meaning to Jyn, but he seemed to hug every single one of the words, "rebellions are built on hope."

 

"You know you can cry if you need to, right?"

Jyn mumbled against Cassian's sternum. His fingertips found the dip at the base of her spine, pressed slightly as she whispered the words on his skin. His chest heaved, and Jyn heard the reverberation of his chuckle in his chest.

She propped up in her arm and towered above him.

"I am serious about it," she hadn't intended to frown, but yet, there she was.

He freed his hand from behind his neck, diving it into her hair. She felt his fingers scraping her skin and tucking locks behind her ear. His palm was warm on the curve of her neck then, thumb catiously brushing and outlining her jaw. He flashed her a smile.

"I know," he whispered, "and if you ever want to talk about your parents... I am here, to listen," he added, voice soft.

Jyn did not bother to bite down the smile that crept onto her face. She gave a swift kiss to Cassian's palm.

"What?" she asked, baffled at the chuckle that escaped his mouth.

Cassian tilted his head on the cushion, his thumb stroke her chin, grazing lightly at her lower lip.

"Thank you."

"Anytime."

His cheek was somewhat damp, his lips had a taste like a phantom of sea air. His chest was warm, and the tickles of his fingertips caressed the scars on her back. He smiled against his lips when his hand nestled  warmly the soft bright hollow on her thigh. Her hand found the soft hollow on his side, right above the curve of his hipbone. She nuzzled his cheek.  His lips captured hers.

The sound of his heartbeat and the feathery warm stroke of his fingers on her lulled her to sleep.

 

  


"Jy— I mean Lieutenant Erso is still on the briefing," Kes told him when he walked past him down the hallway.

Cassian didn't understood what was with Kes acting like he didn't know about... well, Jyn and him, really. There was no reason to turn all professional and use titles when it had been Kes himself who had pushed him to act upon his feelings in the first place —actually, Kes may have insinuated not even Jedi could read minds.

"Draven didn't like that she, uhm, disobeyed direct orders," Kes hesitated, "he's arguing that she put the integrity and success of the mission in jeopardy to act on a whim." Kes cleared his throat before adding, "he's insisting on some sort of punishment, Organa keeps telling it is uncalled for and, I am quoting here, _frankly ridiculous._ "

His comm beeped. Cassian arched an eyebrow, he'd better be going to Shara, what was he still doing there? Unless he was delaying being target of the mouthful Shara had surely ready for him after he left without saying goodbye.

(Cassian remembered Shara describing in vivid detail how she would get back at him for it, he was sorry for Kes, truly. But he couldn't break the promise he'd made to Shara.)

"Go, I'll catch up with her later."

 

"I might as well be given a medal, princess' words, not mine," Jyn clarified as soon as the door to his quarters slid shut behind her with a woosh.

"For?"

She flashed him a satisfied smile before handing over a lit data-pad.

"Taking out the trash. Though Draven would surely want other phrasing on that report of his," she let out a chuckle and gripped her chin with her fingers. She jutted out her lower lip before providing an elated, "eliminating an imperial threat to the thrive of small resistance movements and rebel cells throughout Atrivis sector... that seems awfully long, doesn't it?"

Cassian was barely listening. The air solidified in his lungs when he looked at the section of casualties. There, in plain clear aurebesh, it read _Cynber Yfel, Imperial Admiral._ His finger tapped and swept upwards on the screen.

Kes preliminary report was attached too. By the looks of it, Lieutenant Erso had decided to go after a small group of Imperials, a handful of stormtroopers and two officials, who were fleeing to a shuttle ready to take off. Kes had followed behind, thinking one of the fulcrum agents vital to the operation had been discovered.

But there had been no fulcrum agents among them. Erso hadn't even waited for orders, nor told him whatever was going on. She'd lifted her rifle and got three of the five troopers circling the officials. The other two, she'd taken down with the sheer force of her baton. Then she'd shot the higher ranking official on the knee, smirked at his scream of pain.

"What's up Yfel?" Cassian could practically hear her snarling with disgust and fury, "I was under the impression this one was one of your favourite greetings."

The rest of the exchange was a haze and unclear, Kes attention diverted from the scene playing out when three more troopers had turned the corner. When their bodies had hit the floor, so had the Admiral's.

"Jyn, you..."

The bed creaked. Jyn handed him a steaming cup of caf.

"I wasn't going to let him take another mother from a child," though she tried to keep her tone collected and levelled, it was laced with a scowl. "I know... I know that I should have probably let you," she hesitated, circled the rim of the cup with her finger, "I should have let _you_ take care of him... but I didn't know if... the chance was there and-"

Cassian didn't let her finish that thought. He swallowed the yelp that slid from her mouth, breathing her in.

"I was returning the favor, you know," she managed in a heaved sigh. He nibbled her bottom lip, a teasing graze and squeeze. She giggled, he buried his face in the crook of her neck, drawing in her scent, the softness of her skin, the warmth of her closeness. She shivered in his arms when he smiled against her pulse point.

"Thank you."

Draven, his superior or not, was not going to hear the end of it if he followed through with his idea of disciplining Jyn for this. Though Cassian was sure that if that were the case, Leia Organa would definitely beat him to it.

He tightened his grasp, drew her closer.

For so long had Cassian carried and confined that pain to his memory, for so long had he feared his mother's murderer would never answer for his crimes —Jyn had no idea the burden she'd lifted from his shoulders. Or perhaps she did, and it was precisely why she'd gone out her way to get to the admiral while fully knowing she was yet again disregarding authority and transgressing the chain of command.

He would have very gladly taken care of that bastard, it would have possibly been one of the very few kills he would have enjoyed and taken pleasure into pulling the trigger, quite possibly the only dying eyes that wouldn't come back to haunt him in his dreams. But Jyn was right, she had had no way of knowing if the chance would lay before him eventually. She had had no way of knowing whether destiny, coincidence or the Force itself would prompt the circumstances.

So Jyn had made a choice. Perhaps some would frown upon it, perhaps the pacifists and the moderates who could approach the civil war from the comfort of their apartments and the non violent reality of the Core worlds would brand her actions a prime example of amorality, like they would his. But Jyn had made a choice. 

 _A choice she could live with._ A choice she wouldn't regret not having taken later.

Kanan Jarrus would probably never know how much Cassian, and Jyn, owed him. He was glad it had been Kanan who stumbled upon Jyn at the base galley that evening. He probably wouldn't have her cuddling against his chest if the Jedi hadn't.

"Jyn?"

She hummed, nose nuzzling his cheek.

"How was your mother like?"

 

Cassian lost count of how many cups of caf he had drunk. His sides hurt from laughing, his back too from leaning against the duracrete in the same posture for so long. But all he had eyes was for Jyn, Jyn and the way her eyes lit up and the smile brighten up his face and curled her lips. It all made sense now, who Jyn got her strength and resilience from. Lyra Erso.

Jyn burst into giggles mid-phrase; Cassian was worried whether he would ever get to know how Galen managed to get the vibrant pink nail polish off his hair.

Her laugh was contagious, and he couldn't help but join in with a chuckle of his own. Her cheeks tinted with scarlet clouds. She seized her side, body still trembling from laughter, as she heaved trying to level her breathing again.

She let out a breathy giggle. Hand running down her hair, tiny bun undone and soft waves framing her face, a short light sloped waves brushing her neck and shoulders, she flashed him a smile.

"How was your mother like?"

Fair was fair, he would totally have to embarrass his childhood self and tell her about the failed birthday breakfast attempt when he was five, that time he confused flour with cornstarch.

**Author's Note:**

> This started as a ficlet and somewhere along the way it mutated into a multi-chapter. One of the things I'd have loved to seen explored, had they survived, is how Jyn would have dealt with her grief, how her and Cassian and all of Rogue One would have mourn their losses; the other one is Cassian's backstory. I am tackling both in this story. 
> 
> The realization of losing someone, of death itself, fully draws in months after the loss in question. I envision Jyn staying with the rebellion. Given how Jyn masks her emotions to hide any vulnerability, the fact she lost both her father figures and she finds have found herself in the middle of a civil war, fighting in said war... I think all these would have invariably affected her and taken a toll on her emotions, which she might have masked successfully to most people. The fragments in italics are all from the upcoming chapter of Jyn's dealing with her grief.
> 
> Thank you all for reading and I hope you have enjoyed the story so far :) Special thanks to chamerionwrites on tumblr for the reflections on Cassian's past that sparked the first chapter of this story.


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